They (Neocons) May Have Anger Issues...

UNZ published a transcript of an excellent conversation between Pepe Escobar and Michael Hudson, which you can watch here:

It is a delightful, in its intellect and scope, 2 hours of back and forth, but one thought by Michael Hudson stands out when he speaks about people in the United States who are driving US' insane foreign policy or, rather, lack of it. I touch on this issue in each and every of my books, but especially the last one, but here is what Hudson, who is close to "decision-making" circles posits:

The Americans want war. The people that Biden has appointed have an emotional hatred of Russia. I’ve spoken to government people who are close to the Democratic Party, and they’ve told me that there’s a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there’s still the hatred about their ancestors: “Look what they did to my great-grandfather.” And so they’re willing to back the Nazis, back the anti-Semites in Ukraine. They’re willing to back today’s anti-Semites all over the world as long as they’re getting back at this emotional focus on a kind of post 19^th-century economy. I’ve met these people. Their emotion is one of hatred and anger. You can look at their face and see what they’ve become. This is really dangerous. They are crazy. And Putin is quite right. America has got its power by breaking contracts. It broke all of the contracts with the native Americans to take their land. It’s broken the Iranian contract. It broke most recently the Ukrainian Minsk agreement, and the JCP before. So what’s the point of making an agreement with any Americans

Here is what I am constantly trying to stress--you do not negotiate with a mad bunch, especially afflicted with a narrow ethno-religious trauma, which over the years is being re-amplified in an echo-chamber of the American Jewish immigration, whose ascendance to the very top of the American political power and influence in the post-WW II period came through what some, wrongly, continue to view as intellectual neoconservative (Trotskyist) movement, which was neither "conservative", in any applicable sense nor, most importantly, intellectual. American neoconservative movement is a combination of a shoddy scholarship, if not altogether outright pseudo-religious demagoguery and falsification, and of a masterful, needs to be admitted, manipulation with the American propensity for self-aggrandizing for the reasons which, in reality, go completely counter to the interests of the majority of American population.  

That is why Lavrov today was explicit when stated that "confrontation in bi-lateral relations reached bottom" (in Russian). I may only add that down the road expect the knock from below. And here is the point--American neoconservatism is extremely illiterate in some of the most crucial  aspects of the national security and that is warfare and competent diplomacy. Even a brief review of "intellectual" concoctions by the America's neocons, be that risible Fukuyama's psychobabble, which is neocon in its essence, or any type of Kagan family cabal's bloviation on matters of history and war--American neoconservatism was never competent. It is sure as hell marked by the crusading spirit against human nature and history but that is as far as it goes. So, you cannot explain to a bunch of American Jewish or WASP neocon "scholars" and "influencers" sucking on the teat of America's real and perceived power that before they undertake any practical action based on their loony theories, they better do basic cost-benefit analysis and this one is precisely about them willing to continue to hate Russia at the cost of being turned into radioactive, or just simple, inert, ash or they would want a benefit of staying alive, which comes with resorting to a more peaceful posture. 

This is precisely the occasion on which one makes the case not in terms of "policy", "agreements" or "balance", but in terms of how and where people who push for war, and that is about 99.99% of America's neocon cabal, will get it and how it will look like. In other words, one shows them the weapon by which they will be killed in case they want to unleash a war. Considering the fact that American neocons are not good militarily, in fact many of them are the ones who drive incompetent American militarist propaganda, one is forced to put it in terms those people, who never experienced anything beyond the danger, as Phil Giraldi put it "of chocking on foie gras"  or Power Point applications getting frozen during the presentation or yet another pseudo-academic BS in neocon think-tanks, in terms those people can understand. Neocons, while loving to play with the lives of others, are extremely sensitive to a death coming their way. It is one of the reasons why we still all live in a relatively peaceful environment. 

They do understand and are scared of death. Even when they are convinced, due to their technological, operational and tactical illiteracy, that when Putin stated in February 2019 this:

Feb. 20 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a national address Wednesday Moscow could target the United States if it moves new missiles into eastern Europe, after the scrapping of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. In his State of the Nation address, Putin threatened to target countries in Europe and the United States with new intermediate-range missiles if similar missiles are stationed against Russia in neighboring European nations. He said such a scenario would target U.S. decision-making centers.

He didn't mean the White House, Pentagon or, say, Capitol--no, coordinates of those are contained in the guidance computers of Russia's weapon systems since my tender childhood. Same as Kremlin or Russia's government House are in the American ones. Nothing new here. This is not news and this is not what Putin was talking about. As I state constantly, modern weapon systems have a an unprecedented precision and accuracy. You can today, literally, fly a cruise missile into the window of a house if you have to. Russia's stand-off systems, moreover, have unprecedented ranges. So, if any of the warmongers thinks that they maybe safe in New Zealand or Patagonia--they are really wrong. Nuclear weapons are easy, but those are non-nuclear ones which allow to receive targeting and deliver a salvo of cruise missiles anywhere in the world by means of moving a submarine into firing position anywhere around the globe, including but not limited to Patagonia, New Zealand, Australia or Antarctica, for a good measure. Modern targeting systems of Russia, such as Liana, which is already operational, are high orbit satellite constellations (1,000 + km) which are safe from modern Western anti-satellite missiles, not to mention other means of reconnaissance and targeting which are networked  and well protected. 

In the end, Russian special ops, which also have a very good record of clandestine deployments around the world, do not care where modern SSN or SSGN will deploy them--in South America or Asia. And that is what Putin meant by "decision-making centers". Anyone responsible for unleashing hell on Earth will be found and annihilated either in some specific building in Europe or the US, or will be annihilated or captured personally anywhere in the world. Many forget, that in 1996, the leader of Chechen separatists Dzhohar Dudaev was killed by laser guided bombs with targeting provided based on his use of satellite telephone. That was 25 years ago. Since then Russia moved into the revolutionary warfare territory both in terms of C4ISR and in terms of weapons and that is why if any plans of "sitting out" a war between Russia and NATO exist in the midst of US warmongers, most of them from neocon zoo, the explanation of impossibility of such a plan is a matter of presentation and demonstration of what modern Russian weapon systems can do, and the names of those in US and Europe who push for war are well-known to Russians. This is precisely what Russia was doing for the last 7 years and this is the reason for increasing pitch of anti-Russian hysteria--I know, it is frustrating when one hates Russia more than anything but knows that one can only scream at her and not much more without the danger of being annihilated oneself. 

So, they get this crucial difference between being dead and alive and this is good. So, they want war but they will not get it on their terms--this is called an escalation dominance which comes in the way of real revolution in military affairs. While neocons studied political pseudo-science and ersatz history in US Ivy League universities, Russians were studying physics of flight and of signal processing, among many other things and that is why Russian don't have many doctrines--they have one, but this one works. The United States produces very many of them but as the chief editor of Russia’s popular military-analytical bi-monthly, Arsenal of Fatherland (Arsenal Otechestva), former cadre Russian Air Force officer Alexey Leonkov, states explicitly when commenting of the fact that Americans are global leaders in a number of developed strategies, that there is only one problem with all of them—they are not survivable when faced with reality. Neither are globalist plans on "Reset" which are now merely limited to US, which outlived its use for globalists, whose integral part American neocons are, and Europe which will be subdued and turned into the reservation for economic "units" without culture, nationality and humanity. 

This also explains a desperate desire of the United States to unleash a war, any kind of war in Ukraine and to get Russia into any kind of calamity there and make her spend her resources on  this shithole of a country. But here too, as it is a tradition, a huge miscalculation was made in 2014 and ever since because neocons who pushed this agenda listened to non-neocon but a typical bloviating Russophobe Zbigniew Brzezinski who preached his gospel of Russia's revival being utterly tied to Ukraine reintegrating into Russia. As always, the real situation was exactly the opposite. But they don't learn in D.C. because they cannot--they are ignorant to start with, plus hatred denies them access to the last remaining iota of common sense and knowledge and we have what we have today. But behind all of that is a systemic and irresolvable crisis of financial predatory capitalism, which goes under different monikers, but remains the same, as Michael Hudson astutely put it--the parasite finally ate the host. In this case, the neocon insanity in the US is merely a private symptom of a larger ailment.  

In related news. This is Russia moving her troops (some of it--yes, this is this proverbial netcentricity and C4ISR on the move) into Crimea a week ago. 

If Ukraine wants to really fight Russia--sure, let them. I wonder where all those Ukrainian "decision-making centers" are. Nah, I am being facetious--Russians know where, and who mans them, if you know what I mean. So, they better address their anger issues--that could be a good start.

This Is How Real Geopolitics Works.

Here are today's quotes for oil. 

For people even remotely acquainted with energy issues and Cold War 2.0 (I suck at the former and have a clue on the latter) it shouldn't be a surprise to recall that Russia, a producer of Urals brand of crude, has (and had for a long time) her budget calculated with the base price of barrel of her crude of around $40. A year ago, ever-wrong Bloomberg--so, you see my conundrum here, it is near to impossible to find competent and objective observers of Russia in the US, so I have to get whatever I can--noted when reporting on Russia's balanced budget: 

So far this year, the figure was actually under $42 as the government raised taxes but was slow to release planned spending, according to Kirill Tremasov, a former Economics Ministry official and now director of analysis at Loko-Invest in Moscow. For the first seven months of the year, the government reported a surplus of 3.4% of gross domestic product, double the full-year target.

That was August 2019. Something tells me that these were not sanctions Putin was preparing Russia for--Russia lives under sanctions non-stop pretty much all her modern history, so there was very little strategic change in the way sanctions apply--slightly more, slightly less, who cares. My point is completely different here--feel free to browse my writing in this blog this year leading and during this whole oil prices snafu. As was stated--Russia did anticipate an implosion of oil prices and was ready for it way-way before the shit hit the fan, and that means Covid-19 too. And that, once one sees Russia de facto reaching today her very comfortable crude prices, while keeping US shale oil, and Saudis, under her thumb, tells about, pardon my pathos here, superb strategic planning and forecasting at Russia's top political level. 

Of course, strategic planning is like that Electronic Countermeasure Thingy--that is if you have enough power to do so (hint: nobody has)--you can drown in noise pretty much a whole frequency spectrum in which combat electronics worked, works or will work. That will be not only modern iteration of Lope De Vega's (or if one wishes ancient Greek's fable) famous play of The Dog in the Manger, where one doesn't use whatever is at his disposal but also doesn't allow this whatever to be used by others. It is stupid, it is extremely energy consuming and in the end you suppress your own capabilities. But, of course, there is another way and this one goes way beyond Electronic Warfare, where modern ECM and ECCM systems detect, identify and counter almost instantaneously any kind of threat in a narrow frequency band. This applies to pretty much everything in life and is known, of course, as OODA loop. Ah those Observe and Orient truisms, when Colonel Boyd was writing about it he, of course, meant that whoever does this OO routine is observing and orienting oneself within reality. This art, however, as I preach for years, has been lost in the US for a long time now, while in other quarters this art transitioned as an organic part into the fully blown establishment dealing with this Observing and Orienting. No, it is not just intelligence alone, albeit it is part of it, very important at that, it is a whole complex of state and even private institutions who look dramatically different from the inside than all of the US think tankdom which is designed for merely one purpose: through providing sinecures for all kinds of characters from US military-political-intelligence and even business top to push all kinds of political agendas by means of "research" which, depending on who finances it, may, often does, arrive to mutually exclusive conclusions.  Iraq's WMD, you know, cough-cough....

I vividly recall triumphalist declarations in all kinds of US compost media ranging from said Bloomberg to NYT, to all kinds of neoliberal globalist rags, on how Russia is about to go broke and Putin is going to lose his grip on power and how riots are about to break out in Russia, so you get the gist of this narrative, another false one in a long-long record of US media and "analysts" who do not seem to be able to get a grip. At that time, however, few paid attention to a rather calm and nonchalant predictions of Russia's energy minister Novak that things will come back to normal for Russia (and this normal is around $40 per barrel) really soon. Well, looks like Novak and this ever "losing popularity" Putin knew better. I will go out an a limb here and even propose such a ridiculous (not really) idea that Russians knew the essence of the game very-very early. Sometime early last year, I guess. And here is the point, yes, there is Moscow Stock Exchange, but it is primarily for as bunch which stole things in 1990s and nobody really gives a flying fvck, including Russia's government, about what is going on at Moscow's Stock Exchange. Feel the difference with the Western World? Yep, it is all about reality. And reality is such that Russian "liberda", which is a pretencious copy of American moneyed class, lost it big time. 

Make no mistake, most of them are losers by definition and they exist only because Russians are civilized people and decided that they indeed reached the limit on revolutions. But get this: 

This is today exchange rates for Ruble and this is in a stark contradiction to all those domestic and foreign "experts" who predicted Russia's demise with all that follows, like Ruble to USD as 200 to 1. For people, who have never been trained in real analysis and in a development of information into knowledge, the fact that, even with the start of oil wars and then "attack" of Covid-19, there was no rush of Russians buying foreign currencies, such as was the case in every modern Russia's crisis since 1990s, should have been the most important observation. But no, who observes anything when one can create own unicorns-run universe and orient oneself in it, instead of facing hard cold reality of a serious geopolitics which is formed by cold reality of power-balance which rests on the foundation of the sound economic theory. Even in 2007 the United States had a chance to change the world. It failed to do so because, as history shows, it can not learn even from own brilliant men and women. But I repeat myself. In conclusion, I increasingly begin to arrive to the point of view expressed by Karen Shakhnazarov that the whole "oil war" thing was conceived not by Saudis alone, but with the US blessing. We all know the result, don't we. It was forecast and anticipated in Russia.

Atlantic Partenrship (wink, wink).

I said it many times--for the United States Europe is just a market, the lunch to be eaten to extend the life of a buckling Empire, and EU better get used to itself as being nothing but a consumable. A sacrifice for the greater good to be brought at the altar of democracy and its main exporter and an expert in how democracy is supposed to work and what it means.  As Handelsblatt reports: 

Die Amerikaner könnten schon bald zum nächsten Schlag gegen Nord Stream 2 ausholen. Sollte Russland versuchen, die noch fehlenden Kilometer der Pipeline in der Ostsee fertigzustellen, seien Repräsentantenhaus und Senat bereit, ein weiteres Sanktionsgesetz nachzulegen, heißt es in diplomatischen Kreisen in Washington. Dieses Mal könnte es die europäischen Investoren treffen, die am Projekt beteiligt sind, oder womöglich die Firmen, die das Gas, sollte es irgendwann einmal fließen, abnehmen wollen. Das alles könnte sehr schnell gehen, heißt es weiter, möglicherweise noch im Februar oder März.

Machine Translation: The Americans could soon be ready for the next strike against Nord Stream 2. If Russia tries to complete the missing kilometers of the pipeline in the Baltic Sea, the House of Representatives and the Senate are ready to enact another sanction law, it is said in diplomatic circles in Washington. This time it could hit the European investors involved in the project, or possibly the companies that want to buy the gas should it ever flow. It could all happen very quickly, it is said, possibly in February or March.

Germans worry. Of course they should--they killed their own energy sector (and continue to damage it as I type this).

Concern is growing in the German economy. "Without Russian natural gas, ambitious climate protection goals cannot be achieved in Germany in the short and medium term if we want to maintain affordable electricity prices and thus an energy-intensive industry," urged Oliver Hermes, Chairman of the East Committee of German Business, in a recent speech. His appeal: The EU must learn to defend itself. "If we don't find an effective answer to such extraterritorial sanctions, the European economy will become a game ball for Americans and Chinese." 

Hello, Germany? Read my lips, or, rather, read my syllables: you CANNOT have affordable energy without nuclear and cheap gas, period. And no, Russia is not going to allow you to employ her mammoth electric grid and generating capacity to compensate for your sheer idiocy when your electricity oscillations will threaten your grid and economy. All your "climate protection goals" are a complete anti-scientific BS, a figment of imagination of ignorant lefties who worship Musk and Bezos, virtue signal even when taking a shit at a public restrooms in Bundestag, while masturbating to Greta Thunberg. These are your elites Germany (I omit here the rest of Europe), deal with it. I understand this statement, in the end of this piece:

The European market is just as important for US companies as the American market for companies from Europe. Counter sanctions would be painful accordingly. However, the government in Washington should consider such a decision by the Europeans as the ultimate escalation. The consequences for the transatlantic relationship could hardly be calculated.

Exactly, and none of you, including France, Low Countries and Scandinavia will be competitive against US goods and very expensive energy once you achieved your "climate protection goals" and stop being competitive anywhere. So, the only faint hope for Germany are those Russkies who, frankly, do not give a shit about US sanctions and will complete the pipe. But in the end, a whole of Europe will do as the United States tells it to do and the United States will tell Europe to de-industrialize because the United States wants to live too. And there will be no consequences for transatlantic relations because all European elites are transatlantic elites, conditioned through indoctrination, blackmail and bribes to do what they are told to do by their masters in D.C. Time for Europe to experience allied relations to the full extent of the American geopolitical shaft. In the end, Europe and some parts of Latin America are the only places where American orders still matter.

Meanwhile, Russia is not interested anymore in Greater Europe, because Russia is too deep into Greater Eurasia project and she already made her "civilizational" mind up--EU is not in Russian plans in any way, let alone for some sort of integration. To integrate with WHO in Europe, and WHY? I always said that never again should the foot of Russian soldier step onto European soil under any circumstances. Let them deal with each-other and, something tells me we didn't see the last of Color Revolutions and Democratic Regime Changes--Europe seems like a good candidacy, plus US military democracy-radiating bases are already there, including in Germany, many of them. After all, Germany is an occupied country by those nasty Soviets, ah, wait...silly me, USSR doesn't exist anymore, but still, and Germany should behave herself as one. Europe made her choice long time ago, she must bear responsibility for that choice, even if it will be unpleasant and a painful process. I am sure an injection of a new doze of transatlantic values is long overdue for Europe. Repeat after me: Greta, Greta, Greta....

P.S. If anyone thinks that Nord Stream-2 sabotage may hit Russia, they should think twice, Russia, of course, wants to exclude Ukraine from any transit, but think strategically for a while--Germany is already hurting because of the sheer lunacy of her internal economic policies. Now get this: if European goods become very expensive and Russia has an economy which produces pretty much everything--put 2 and 2 together.  Plus, of course, unlike Germany Russia has enough TNT equivalent to not give a shit about threats from anyone. I'll give you a hint: 

German conglomerate Siemens has applied for a special investment contract to localize production of its high-capacity gas turbines in Russia. The move follows a 2017 scandal over the supply of Siemens turbines to Crimea.Under the terms of the contract, the components of the ‘hot gas path’ and the gas turbine automatic control system will be localized in Russia until the middle of 2023, according to the Siemens press service.

Too bad, for Siemens, it was too little, too late (in Russian). Yes, I know, this world is so unjust, wink, wink.